News from the NBII

NBII Invasive Species Information Node partner Discover Life has launched an online journal called Proceedings of Life that is interactive, peer reviewed, and free to all users. Invasive species, taxonomy, and climate change are just a few of the areas that are anticipated to fall within the scope of this data-rich journal.

In a recent effort coordinated by the USGS Geospatial Information Office, the NBII contributed geospatial datasets for inclusion on Data.gov, a high priority initiative of the Obama administration, the purpose of which is to increase public access to high value datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government. The USGS provided freely downloadable geospatial datasets to help fulfill a near-term Data.gov goal of 100,000 datasets. The NBII contributed over 700 of approximately 2,000 datasets submitted to this initiative by USGS. Prompt response to the call for data was possible through the NBII Metadata Clearinghouse, a searchable system of records describing scientific research, and through the efforts of the USGS Biology Science Centers that contribute to the Clearinghouse.

The North American Butterfly Association’s (NABA) July 4 butterfly count is fast approaching. The new NABA online data entry system, funded in part by the NBII, makes participating easier than ever! For more information about the NBII contribution to this effort, contact Andrea Ostroff at <aostroff@usgs.gov>. For more information on NABA and its butterfly counts, see http://www.naba.org/butter_counts.html.

You can see the Annals of Botany special issue on Ecology and Evolution of Plant-Pollinator Interactions (June 2009) at http://aob.oxfordjournals.org/. To learn more about plant-pollinator interactions on the NBII Pollinators Web site, go to http://pollinators.nbii.gov/.

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